


drenched in scarlet

by NamelesslyNightlock



Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: Aram is too nice, Gen, Paintball, Samar Navabi Shows No Mercy, but he still wins, the team take training exercises far too seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 17:10:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14835758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NamelesslyNightlock/pseuds/NamelesslyNightlock
Summary: The Taskforce are a team, but when every agent must fight for their own survival sentiment is thrown out the window. It’s impossible to know who to trust, and Aram is left cowering and alone, forced to use his smarts to outwit his highly trained assailants and survive the most gruelling experience of his FBI career to date.(Or, the one in which the others may accuse Aram of being a cheater, but he wins nonetheless.)





	drenched in scarlet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whimsicalwombat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimsicalwombat/gifts).



> as promised.
> 
> wow I haven't written for this fandom in ages. hopefully I'm not too rusty!

Aram’s breathing was heavy, his hands sweaty and slippery as he clutched his weapon close to his chest. He knew that his assailants were far more trained than he, that if he came face to face with any of them it would be all over. He’d been hiding for far too long to judge now, every moment longer than the last as he listened for the slightest of movements, waiting in the darkness and dreading the moment that someone would discover him.

A low chuckle sounded right outside his hiding place, and Aram pressed back tighter against the wall, freezing as his shoulder brushed a broom– but thankfully, it didn’t fall. He _recognised_ that chuckle, and if he were found—

A bead of sweat ran down his temple and caught in his eyelash, and he ached to wipe it away but was too worried that he might be heard. He remained unmoving until he heard footsteps echo further down the hall, shivering with relief as a second set padded quietly away from where they had paused outside his cupboard door. A distraction was exactly what he had needed, and as he heard a shot ring out followed by a familiar curse and the pounding of two pairs of boots as they raced away, he let out a sigh of relief in a single, breathy exhale, squeezing his eyes shut.

The movement shook the drop of sweat into his eye, and the saltiness stung horribly. Aram let go of his gun with one hand to wipe it away, but in his haste his arm jostled the broom once again, and this time he wasn’t so lucky.

“Oh god,” he whispered, fingers and feet scuttling against the floor in an attempt to stand and _move_ but he only succeeded in knocking over more cleaning supplies. Why had he thought that the cupboard would be the place to hide? The damn thing was _clearly_ a hazard, with his clumsy tendencies.

Aram only froze when he heard footsteps again, accompanied by the unmistakable cock of a Bureau issued weapon. Then the door opened, and all Aram saw was the muzzle of a gun. He acted instinctively, his own weapon clutched so tightly in his hands already that all he needed to do was raise the damn thing towards the door and fire.

He was only three feet from his attacker, and they were standing right in the doorway. It was impossible to miss.  

“Aram,” Liz choked, staring down at the bright scarlet blossom that was blooming across her chest.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Aram exclaimed, his voice turning squeaky. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean– I’m sorry Agent Keen, but I can’t—“

“Aram!” Liz gasped, her wide eyes turning to him. “ _You_ –“

“I’m sorry!” Aram called one more time, pushing past her violently and running out into the hallway. His gun still felt slippery in his hands but he held onto it tightly, not willing to let his only lifeline go. Liz would be fine, he’d hit her on the right side, far away from her heart—

He could hear Liz swearing behind him but he kept running, not willing to risk that she would turn and shoot him back, or that the others had heard the racket. Staying in that hallway was a sure-fire way to get killed, and he was hoping to survive another _ten minutes_ , at the very least.

Although, he was fairly certain he had already surpassed all expectations. It had been a full half hour since Director Cooper had stormed the Post Office with an automatic weapon in both hands, firing shots left and right and shouting at them all to defend themselves. Cooper had been taken down almost instantly, but after that, they had all taken sides, formed alliances, dashed to their personal secret ammunition stores in the break room, in the bathroom, or (in Samar’s case, he knew) hidden behind a loose floorboard in Observation Room 3.

Aram’s own stash was in the A3 drawer of the old printer in the copy room, the one that spat out its produce at an approximate rate of one page per minute. No one used it, preferring to queue for use of the newer model, and the Bureau wouldn’t fork out the funds to replace it, so of course it was the perfect hiding spot.

But Liz had holed up in the copy room from the very start, and Aram hadn’t been able to get to his stash. So he had been stuck with the limited ammunition and gun from his desk, and had retreated to one of the janitorial cupboards as a last resort.

Now, though, he knew that Liz _wasn’t_ in the copy room. He had a chance.

He slowed his pace as he grew further from where he had shot Liz, pausing at corners and making a conscious effort to quiet his steps. He may not have been trained as a field agent, but he knew enough not to be stupid. It was a good thing, too, because even with his best efforts he nearly ran into the middle of a deadly stand off– but thankfully the two agents in the hallway were focused entirely on each other, and he was able to duck back around a corner.

“Stand down, Navabi,” Ressler said, his gun trained perfectly between her eyes. He had a streak of dribbling liquid running along his hairline, not enough to have been a kill shot, but certainly enough to have given him a hell of a headache. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“That’s cute,” Samar taunted, her own gun steady on her hands. “But you don’t need to worry.”

They fired at the same time, but Samar was the only one of the two who fired _and_ ducked. She avoided being hit entirely, but her own training worked against her– the guns had less of a kick-back than she was used to, and her shot missed its target.

Ressler swore just as Aram had heard him do earlier, cursing up a storm as he glared at the spatter of purple paint on his left shoulder– too high to kill him, but it had certainly ruined his shirt.

“Not fast enough, Ressler,” Samar taunted. From Aram’s position he could see her crouched against a doorway. She raised her weapon once more and began rapid fire, the deadly purple pellets peppering away at the opposite wall as Ressler dashed to safety. His curses made it clear that a few more shots connected, but he remained in the game.

Samar hadn’t noticed that she was being watched, and Aram considered raising his gun and shooting her in the back– she would be out of the way, then, and Ressler was too busy avoiding her onslaught to be able to shoot at Aram before he could get clear. But it seemed wrong to shoot her in the back. Cowardly, even. On the other hand, he knew that Samar herself wouldn’t shirk at such underhanded tactics.

Before Aram could come to a decision Ressler was gone, and Samar was left alone in the hallway. She stared contemplatively in the direction Ressler had run toward, clearly debating whether to follow– but a check of her ammunition pack had her darting down the other way and through a door set into the wall.

That was okay, that was fine, because neither of them had spotted Aram which meant that he was safe–

Except for the fact that the door Samar had entered was exactly where Aram had been hoping to go.

So _that_ was why Liz had been forced to vacate the copy room. Goddamn it.

He should have shot Samar earlier, chivalry be damned. He should have learned by now that niceness didn’t win any wars. Aram wasn’t stupid enough to attempt going up against Samar, and especially not after the short work he’d just seen her make of Ressler. Sure, the guy was still alive, but only _barely_. It was becoming more and more clear that what Aram needed was a big distraction, but for that, he needed to know what was going on.

Security was on the other side of the facility from the copy room, so he took his time and moved carefully, and he managed to reach it without incident. The agents inside swore at him as he shot them calmly in the head, using his last two pellets of bright red paint.

“We aren’t even playing, dude,” one complained, staring sadly into his red-spattered popcorn. “This was still warm and everything.”

Clearly, they had been forewarned. Aram thought they probably deserved it.

They also did _not_ need to know that Aram was out of ammo, and he gestured threateningly at them with his gun until they backed into a corner, letting him look at the high-tech security footage.

Samar was on the prowl again, the copy room left abandoned. She had a bright blue smudge on her side, but otherwise remained entirely unharmed. Ressler wasn’t far from her, checking every corner he approached with professional precision. Cooper was in his office, staring at his screen with glee, probably watching the exact feed as Aram.

But it was Liz who caught his gaze, the coloured footage painting a pretty picture as she stood out in the open, right in the middle of the War Room, the walls of the place still dripping with green paint from Cooper’s original attack. She was glaring at the paint-spattered gun that lay on her desk, clearly irritated to be the first knocked out.

Aram watched as her head snapped up, her attention on the elevator as the large doors slid open to reveal their friendly neighbourhood criminal and his ever present shadow.

Reddington stared at Liz curiously as he strode toward her, his eyes roaming over her yellow-and-red-spattered shirt before coming to rest on the large burst of purple at her temple.

Back in Security, Aram quickly turned up the volume, not wanting to miss a single thing.

“Ah,” Reddington said, a smirk playing at his lips as he pulled off his trademark hat and placed it gently beside Liz’s no-doubt empty weapon. “I was wondering why it was so quiet on my way in, but think I know now what’s happened here. Who on Earth managed to take you out?”

“Samar,” Liz spat. “She offered to team up against Ressler, then pulled me in front of her as a shield and _then_ shot me in the head.”

Reddington quite clearly stifled a snort.

“As if you could have done better,” Liz said, rolling her eyes.

Reddington raised his brows at the obvious challenge, his smile widening, and he looked about to announce that he would join the game but then—

A shot rang out, and Reddington flinched hard as it struck him in the back. He turned, almost comically, to where Dembe was standing behind him with a weapon in hand. The paint staining Red’s back was yellow, so Aram concluded that Dembe must have found the gun on Ressler’s desk.

“ _Dembe_ ,” Red exclaimed, shaking his head in exasperation. “I am so disappointed. I never would have thought—“

“Sorry, Raymond.” Dembe ducked his head, though Aram suspected it was probably more to hide his smile than in any actual regret. “It had to be done.”

“It did _not_. I thought we were a team—“

“We were,” Dembe agreed. “But no longer.”

 _Well,_ Aram thought as he watched Dembe duck below the stairwell, leaving Reddington to stand forlornly in the middle of the War Room, muttering about the cost of dry-cleaning a good suit. _This could be a problem._

With another player in the game, it would be more difficult to ensure that his own plan was directed in all the right locations. However, it was also possible that Dembe, with the element of surprise on his side, would take out a few of the other agents, making it easier to move. Liz, after all, was the only one so far who had been properly killed.

Aram checked the security footage one last time, making sure that he was able to track the movements of all three players who still yet lived, before he saluted the two security guys and then started the slow trek back to the copy room. He was out of ammo so he couldn’t afford to run into anyone– but if he were going to play it safe, he should have just stayed in Security.

But ever since everyone had begun stockpiling supplies, Aram’d had a plan in place.

He just _needed_ to get to that copy room.

Thankfully, Samar was absent when he arrived. He did a quick look through before doing anything else, too afraid to touch anything, half worried that Samar might have left some kind of a trap. Everything seemed to be in place though, which was suspicious, because why would both Samar _and_ Liz have chosen this particular room if not for the same reason that he had?

It was when Aram saw the broken super-soaker abandoned below the shelf containing the large bottles of ink that they used to refill both the printers and the stamp pads that he realised what had happened.

Luckily, the red ink was left in place– most likely due to the missing blue which Liz had probably taken, and which Samar would also have needed to mix her correct shade of purple.

Thank god for small mercies. Liz, who Aram had cruelly shot in the one spot that was incredibly painful for any woman to be hit, had inadvertently managed to save his plan. Oops.

Although… while everyone else had simply made use of the opportunity, Aram had been planning this for a while. He’d always known that when this particular training exercise took place he would be stupidly out-skilled, so he’d been determined to ensure that he wouldn’t also be out-gunned.

First things first, Aram opened the A3 drawer in the old printer and pulled out a few extra red paintballs, loading his gun and filling his pockets. Then he stood, braced himself, gripped the edge of the printer and _pulled_. The damn thing was heavy but Aram was determined, and it moved away from the wall with an entirely too loud screech.

Aram aimed his gun at the door for a few moments, listening hard, his heart in his throat. But there was no movement outside, and he turned back to the small space in the wall the printer had revealed. Hidden inside were several half-full bottles of ink, secreted away by Aram over the past month when he thought he could get away with it.

It was more than enough to do the damage he needed.

Just one more stop, and then he was home free.

~><~

Samar’s breathing was carefully regulated as she crouched behind a bathroom door, her gun held lightly in her hands. It was a regular paintball gun, unfortunately, not capable of the same kind of damage as the super-soaker she’d been forced to abandon in the copy room, broken so that no one else could take advantage of her plan. The paintball gun had a better range, though, and to take someone out she only needed the one shot.

One shot was all it would take, and she knew that Ressler was close. He had been hit with so many shots already from both her and Liz, and he was no doubt just burning to take her out. That he had survived thus far was testament to his skill, but she knew that she was better, and she knew that Ressler had used up his last chance.

A smile curled at the corner of her lips as she heard soft footsteps down the hall. They were too soft to belong to Aram, so she knew that she must have found her desired target.

She waited until they had passed by the bathroom door before stepping out, her gun primed and ready.

Except… it wasn’t Ressler. The shock of seeing someone she had not even realised was in the building was enough to bring her pause, and that hesitation very nearly spelled her death.

Dembe’s weapon was also already level and primed, his expression hauntingly impassive as he aimed it directly at her heart.

“Do you think you’re faster than me, Agent Navabi?” Dembe asked softly.

“Only one way to find out,” Samar said without a flinch.

They stared each other down a moment longer, both knowing that the other would never back down but just waiting to judge when best to pull their trigger, calculating whether they could fire and duck, whether they could kill and still survive, or whether they were simply about to mutually end each other’s campaign.

Then the fire alarm blared through the halls and the walls began to bleed as bright red liquid rained down from above, drenching them both in scarlet. Dembe began to laugh and Samar allowed her gun to drop, knowing that they both had already lost.

~><~

When Aram skipped into the War Room with an umbrella and shit-eating grin, he was met with a myriad of glares and rude hand gestures.

“There’s no way that was in the rules,” Ressler said, though his eyes were bright with the excitement the morning had wrought. “Aram, you’re a cheat.”

“The only rules laid out in the briefing packet we got last month was that an agent would be deemed removed from the game when they were ‘killed’, and that no injuries would take effect,” Aram argued. “There was absolutely nothing in there that said anything about needing to kill people with the weapons. I got you all in the head _and_ in the heart. I _win_.”

“On a technicality,” Ressler tried, but otherwise there was nothing he could say, and Aram felt a gleeful bubble rise up in his chest.

“Well, I thought it was very well done,” said Reddington, managing to pull off his yellow-stained jacket with a remarkable level of finesse. “Agent Mojtabai, congratulations. I am very impressed.”

“Uh…” Aram had to force his expression to remain polite, not sure of how to respond to such a compliment. Was it still not cheating if the criminal approved? “Thanks.”

“I thought it was inspired,” Samar told him, smiling slyly. Her hair was flattened with ink and sticking to her red-stained face, making her look horrifyingly like a character from a particularly gruesome Quentin Tarantino movie.  

Liz, meanwhile, was simply hiding her laughter behind her hands, her eyes dancing with mirth as she watched Ressler attempt to wipe at his hair with an equally red napkin.

“Agent Mojtabai,” Cooper said with calm directness, “do you understand how expensive ink is?”

“Uh, yes,” Aram said, wincing as he realised just how much trouble he was going to be in. “However, since the brief stated that a surprise exercise would be initiated to test our resourcefulness under stress, I thought that my actions were warranted.”

Cooper stared at him hard for a single, terrifying moment, and Aram gulped. But then the moment passed and a grin broke through the Director’s hard expression.

“Well done, Aram,” he said before heading back toward his office, probably to change his own still colourful clothing. But he paused on the stairs, turning to say– “The rest of you– I’ll be seeing you in my office for a debriefing. We need to discuss how the analyst managed to outwit my highly trained field operatives.”

“Because he cheated,” Ressler muttered under his breath, though the grin he shot to Aram immediately afterward proved that he meant it in jest.

Dembe nodded to Aram, his smile small but, for him, it was bright.

“I can’t wait to see what the next half-yearly training exercise will be,” Liz said, her own hair and clothes dripping yellow on the carpet. The War Room had been spared Aram’s assault since no one still living had been inside it, so the expensive electronics along with both Liz and Reddington had been spared the crimson flood that that had painted the rest of the facility a bright, bright red.

Aram tilted his head and kept his expression entirely serious as he suggested– “I think we should put in a vote for capture the flag.”

The responding cacophony of insults and horrified shouts was worth the tri-coloured paintballs that shot in his direction immediately afterward. He was battered and bruised, but hell, he’d _won_ , and it had to be one of the best days at work that Aram had experienced yet _._  

 


End file.
